


monsters under the bed

by atlas_oulast



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Depression, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Internalized Misogyny, Multi, Panic Attacks, Physical Abuse, Self-Harm, Sexism, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-02-28 20:24:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18763555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_oulast/pseuds/atlas_oulast
Summary: an au where thalia grows up with jeremy and michael, rather than meet them later - and it’s not all fun and games





	monsters under the bed

**Author's Note:**

> uwu

Thalia Joyce McCarthy, born October fifth, 2001, was five years old and sitting alone on the swing set on the first day of kindergarten.

She had struggled to get up into the swing in the first place, it was bigger than her, and her feet couldn’t touch the ground here. And she also didn’t know how to swing in the first place, but at least none of the big mean kids were over here.

Thalia was scared of all the kids here, everyone was so much bigger than her, and nobody seemed to like her. The teacher didn’t like her, either, but it made sense, because nobody liked her all her life anyway.

She was crying, sitting alone on the swings, clutching the chains in her little fists for dear life, afraid she’d fall off if she let go, tears streaming down her cheeks.

This girl, tiny for her age, wearing a long sleeved purple shirt with nothing fun on it and blue shorts and pink Crocs. 

Her hair, cut to her chin by her mother, was dark brown and kept getting in her eyes and tangled up, and it drove her absolutely nuts. She wished that her mother would just cut it all off.

Everyone had been mean to her from the first moment she’d walked in the school.

The teacher got mad when she Thalia had sat down at the wrong table by accident, and told her in a mean voice to sit at a different table, with a little boy with light brown hair and blue eyes, a little boy with red hair, and two girls, one with curly, curly yellow hair and the other with big purple glasses and orange hair in pigtails.

And the other kids at the table didn’t like her. They talked excitedly about stuff called Pokemon and Wonder Woman and Mickey Mouse and she didn’t know any of the stuff.

And when Thalia tried to get into the conversation and asked who Minnie Mouse was the girl with really curly yellow hair stuck her tongue out and said that if she didn’t know who Minnie Mouse was, she shouldn’t talk to them.

Thalia had cried, and the teacher had told her to stop crying in another mean voice.

And then it rained outside and the power went out, and Thalia hid under the table because she was scared of the dark, and when she wouldn’t come out even when the lights came back on, the teacher pulled her out and made her sit in the Bad Kid Chair.

When she’d been allowed back to the table, the teacher told her to write out all her ABC’s and numbers from one to thirty, and she’d gotten frustrated, cried some more, and was never so happy to eat her lunch (half of a peanut butter and jelly; she hated peanut butter but it was still food) and then finally, they got to go on the playground.

When Thalia had first seen the playground, she thought it was really cool. Tube slides, lots of swings, bouncy horses, and a bouncy bridge!

But nobody would let her bounce on the bouncy bridge, and she was scared of the slides and the big kids climbing up them, and all the bouncy horses were being ridden.

So she’d ended up on the swing, and for what seemed like the thousandth time that day, she cried. But this time, it was big, hiccupy crying, big alligator tears, and Thalia hated school. She wanted to go home.

And then there was a little boy standing in front of her, he had a shirt with a weird yellow creature on it and jeans, and he had skin the same colour as hers.

“Why’re you sad?” He asked.

Thalia made a squeaky noise. He had the same skin as her, but he was so, so much bigger! Big and scary and probably mean.

“Are you gonna... are you gonna hurt me?” Thalia asked finally, in a small voice.

“No! You’re sad, and I want to help you. And we can play, and you can meet my other friend!”

“You’re not gonna hurt me?”

“Why would I?”

Thalia cautiously slipped off the swing, stumbling a bit as her feet met the mulch, and looked up at the boy.

He had brown eyes, like she did, and they were kindly looking down at her.

“Do you want a hug?” He asked.

“What’s that?”

She genuinely didn’t know what the word meant. She’d seen in tossed around in some of the little kid books she’d read, but really didn’t know the what it actually was.

“I’ll show you.”

And then he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her, and Thalia was pretty sure that she now absolutely loved hugs. It was nice, someone touching her and not really in a bad way.

“Now you hug me back, and then it’s a real hug!” The boy said.

Thalia cautiously wrapped her small arms back around the boy, and ended up sinking further into the hug.

But he let go after a couple more seconds, which was a little disappointing, but it’d still been nice and made her feel warm inside.

“My name’s Michael, what’s your name?” He was smiling.

“Thalia McCarthy.”

“That’s a pretty name! Do you wanna meet Jeremy?”

“Who’s that?”

Michael lead her over to another little boy, this one with white skin, fluffy brown hair that was lighter than her brown hair, blue eyes, and he was wearing a green shirt and black shorts. He was one of the little boys from her table, and Thalia shrunk back away from him a bit, expecting him to be mean to her.

“This is Jeremy!”

Jeremy looked at her, and even though he was bigger than her, too, he looked scared. Like her! So maybe she wasn’t the only scared one? And maybe he’d be nice to her, and not mean?

“Jeremy, her name’s Thalia. I think she should play Spider Man with us!”

“Who’s Spider Man?” Thalia asked.

“He’s a boy who got bit by a spider and now he gets a cool suit and shoots webs out of his hands!” Jeremy said. “How come you don’t know that?”

“I dunno. But he sounds kinda cool.”

“He can stick to walls with his sticky spider hands, and he beats the Joker!” Michael exclaimed.

“I thought that Batman beat Joker, Micha.” That was Jeremy.

“They both do.”

So Thalia ended up playing with Jeremy and Michael. They played on the jungle gym, and Michael could climb all the way to the top and hang upside down, but Thalia could only climb a little way up. 

But Jeremy was the same way, so it was okay! They ran around in and out of the inside, and up and down as far as they could go, and Thalia’s tears dried on her cheeks.

The rest of the day was a little better. She still got frustrated again, but didn’t cry. And since Jeremy was at her table, he helped her. Jeremy switched seats with the girl with purple glasses, so he and Thalia could sit together.

Thalia had to take the bus home, the special yellow and blue bus for kindergarters only, and so Michael and Jeremy had the same bus.

They squished together on a seat, Thalia getting the one by the window, Jeremy next to her, and Michael on the end. Since Thalia didn’t know who Clefairy and Totodile were, she watched out the window most of the time, but Thalia was still happy.

And when her dad hit her, like he usually did, she didn’t feel as upset as usual. Sure, it hurt a lot, and she watched it reappear on her skin as another big mean purple spot, but she didn’t cry later, she felt almost okay.

That was how Thalia became friends with Jeremy and Michael.


End file.
